'I can't tell what ails my child, ma'am,' said a labourer's wife to the writer of this, one bitter day last winter, 'he's carrying on so strange: crowing like a cock, and turning his-self almost black in the face every nows and again.'
The infant in question was comfortably seated on a nice cold door-step, and breathing as if he had swallowed a baby's rattle by mistake. 'Your child has the croup,' I said, picking up the unfortunate little creature and carrying it to the fireside; 'and if you don't do something for him at once, he'll very likely die.'
However something was done for him, and he didn't die; but he had a kick for his life all the same, and very little more door-step would have finished him. Yet this poor woman was not an unloving mother; she was only ignorant, and in her ignorance, assisting her child into the grave she would have shed such bitter tears over.
From croup to diphtheria is a natural progression, and we would wish to say a few, a very few words on this terrible disease; not as to its treatment by the amateur nurse, for it is of the greatest importance that such cases should have close medical care. It is then on the subject of the operation called tracheotomy—that is, the making an outward incision in the windpipe below the seat of the disease, and inserting a tube for the purpose of respiration, that we would speak—not to discuss it in its medical aspect, but simply to say a word or two to nervous mothers who would shrink from the idea of the surgeon's knife touching a sick child under any circumstances whatever. Surely there can be no more pitiful sight to look upon than a child dying of diphtheria—the eyes wild with fear, looking appealingly for help from one troubled face to another; the little hand thrust into the mouth in helpless, useless effort to dislodge the terrible leather-like substance that is clogging up the throat, and making each breath a sound so painful that for days and weeks to come it will not cease to sound in our ears. What more agonising sight can the sick-room give us to gaze upon? And yet doctors have told us of cases in which a mother has had such an overpowering dread of the surgeon's knife, that even when things come to such a state as this, she has positively refused to allow of any attempt at alleviation of her child's agony by a simple operation!
Now it is on this head we wish to say a few words of encouragement and counsel. Tracheotomy is in the first place a chance—a very slight chance in most cases—but still a chance for life; but if it does not save life, it spares the child a death of awful suffering. The pain of the operation itself is so momentary as not to be worth considering, and relief is instantaneous. We are not speaking of recovery, but simply of the difference between such a death as that described above and the quiet 'falling asleep' of the child upon whom tracheotomy has been performed; and this is what the writer saw—the frightened appealing eyes; the pitiful effort at self-help; and then the instant relief given by firm and skilful hands; and four-and-twenty hours later, the quiet painless death; the boy smiling up into our faces as the pure spirit fled to that place of rest and peace where 'there shall be no more pain.' It was not a thing to be seen and forgotten.
[LIFE IN A MILITARY PRISON.]
BY A PRISON CHAPLAIN.
In an address lately delivered at Birmingham, Professor Tyndall says: 'I met some few years since in a railway carriage the governor of one of our largest prisons. He was evidently an observant and reflective man. He told me that the prisoners in his charge might be divided into three classes. The first class consisted of persons who ought never to have been in prison. External accident, and not internal taint, had brought them within the grasp of the law, and what had happened to them might happen to most of us. They were essentially men of sound moral stamina, though wearing the prison garb. Then came the largest class, formed of individuals possessing no strong bias moral or immoral, plastic to the touch of circumstances, which would mould them into either good or evil members of society. Thirdly came a class—happily not a large one—whom no kindness could conciliate and no discipline tame. They were sent into this world labelled "Incorrigible," wickedness being stamped as it were upon their organisations.'
As a matter of fact, there is a distinction made, and rightly made, between the inmates of military prisons. They are divided into first, second, and third classes; which you may call bad, worse, and worst, if you are of the despairing type of philanthropist; or good, better, and best, if you are a great believer in human nature, even in imprisoned human nature. The first class wear a red stripe on the arm, and being the best conducted, are given less work to do and more food. Class number two are marked with a yellow stripe; while the third or lowest class are distinguished by a white badge. A stranger might perhaps shrink from all who wear white stripes as from 'incorrigibles;' but some in the third class may be really very little more 'incorrigible' than himself, for every prisoner, no matter what his character may be, except in very special cases, is placed in the third class on his reception. He then, by good conduct, becomes eligible for promotion into the second class, and subsequently into the first. Rule one hundred and sixty-six of the Regulations for Military Prisons, lays down that 'the first class will be composed of those prisoners who, from their quiet orderly habits and general good conduct under punishment, may appear deserving of being promoted from the second class after some experience has been gained of their characters. Prisoners in either the first or the second class will also be liable to be removed to a lower class for misconduct.' Though the first class of prisoners are employed during the same hours as those prescribed for the second class, the labour is of a less severe description: picking oakum or drill being substituted for the deservedly hated crank and shot exercise. Another privilege enjoyed by the first class is, that they are never deprived of their bed, whereas, 'all prisoners on reception are to sleep for the first week in the same manner as a soldier on guard—that is, on a board without undressing—and subsequently, the third-class prisoners are to sleep as on guard every other night; and the second-class prisoners in the same manner every third night: the prisoners of the first class being alone exempted from this rule.' First and second class prisoners are employed in this prison—which is no Castle of Indolence—at drill, shot exercise, the crank, cleaning the passages and other parts of the premises from six o'clock A.M. to six o'clock P.M.; and those of the third class from six o'clock A.M. to eight o'clock P.M.; with the exception of regular times for parades, chapel, and meals.